Farang Farang

Brandon Follett of Earthworm Envy visits a fruit ice factory in Buriram, Thailand and interviews the owner. If you like this one, check out more of Steve’s videos. He is a particularly amusing person to watch because of his deadpan voice countered by the obvious excitement in his eyes. All that aside, I like this video because it shows an entrepreneurial side to someone in Isaan, which is one of Thailand’s poorer regions.

It’s funny to see the universality of kids going haywire over sugary, frozen desserts in the heat of the day.

The monkeys in the video below appear to be in a place where people often feed them. When you go to Thailand, be sure to keep your distance from monkeys and other animals. Sure they look soft and cute, but they are wild animals and can give you a nasty bite. On top of this, rabies is endemic there, so that bite may pack a punch later on. If you choose to feed these little furrballs, do so from a safe distance.

Enjoy the video. The monkeys really are adorable.

Phuket has a very interesting vegetarian festival you should check out if you are ever there at the right time. This year’s festival is at the end of September and the beginning of October. In the video you can see that as part of the observance, people pierce their cheeks with varying size objects, from thin rods to full-size swords.

An explanation from the festival’s web site:

The Phuket Vegetarian Festival is an annual event held during the ninth lunar month of the Chinese calendar. It is believed that the vegetarian festival and its accompanying sacred rituals bestow good fortune upon those who religiously observe this rite. During this time, local residents of Chinese ancestry strictly observe a 10-day vegetarian or vegan diet for the purposes of spiritual cleansing and merit-making. Sacred rituals are performed at various Chinese shrines and temples and aesthetic displays such as walking barefooted over hot coals and ascending ladders with bladed rungs are performed by entranced devotees known as “Ma Song”.

See the video below for a first-hand look at the festival:

If you have not seen or used Qik, it’s definitely a great thing to experience. It’s a service that allows users to stream video in real time from their cell phones and receive comments and questions in real time. This makes it an ideal tool for mobile webcast interviews.

A fellow in Bangkok named Moui is using Qik to capture the world around him. His video, below, while not particularly stunning, gives a good sense of Bangkok’s personal transportation methods. The vehicles you see are mainly motorbikes, small pickup trucks and tuk-tuks.

These are all economic choices. motorbikes are rather affordable, compared to other choices and are more efficient than other vehicles. Pickup trucks, while using more gas, can be used as utility vehicles and can even be hired out to make extra money. Tuk-tuks are slightly more expensive than motorbikes, are light and thus use little gas and are often used as taxis or else very light-duty trucks.

Check out the video and let me know your thoughts and what you notice.

This video shows a colorful side of Bangkok not as well frequented by tourists. Chinatown is definitely a great place to go during the day, when you can visit all the interesting markets and temples. As the sun goes down, the climate changes a bit and the area becomes a little more sketchy. While I was staying in Chinatown, I was out walking in the evening and was accosted by a drunk, belligerent man who was intent on getting in a fight with me.

A combination of things helped me in this case. For one, at 6′4″ tall, I towered over him and probably outweighed him by 100 pounds or more. Second, he was drunk and had a slow reaction time, and eventually his friends restrained him. I was not going to stay out after that encounter and hurried back to my hotel, where at least I would not be picked up by the police for fighting.

At any rate, it’s a perfectly safe place during the day, although I know I did not sell it well so far. Go check it out and enjoy a side of the city often skipped over.

I suppose it’s relevant to the conversation to address the issue of just what a farang is. During my last trip to Thailand, I heard this word a lot. I’d sit at a food stall or go to a market, perhaps just walking down the street, and hear, “farang, farang.” I knew the people were talking about me.

I knew what a farang was already, but quickly learned that, like many racial terms, the meaning was not always positive. You can read more about all this here, but I wanted to share one excerpt from the Next Life in the Afternoon blog:

Farang means something on the order of “honkey,” had the term honkey caught on. Let’s be honest – beyond those two years sometime in the 1970s, nobody has heard or used that term with any seriousness or regularity.

Farang is the designation Thais use for most non-Asian foreigners. More specifically, a stereotypical farang has light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. Ironically, as I pointed out to my Thai friend Nut, those features are the same as you see in Siamese cats.

That brought no end of hilarity, it seemed for a little while. Farang cat, not Siamese cat. Good times.

There is some thought that the term farang may have come about in the early days of French colonialism, when missionaries came to civilize people through religion. Well, that was their intention. I am not saying they were more civilized, probably just more arrogant.

The Thai word for French sounds like, “farangsayt,” and these people were known as farangs, as farang is also the word for “foreign.” So there are at least two competing etymologies for this, and I understand that the true etymology is a contested issue among linguists.

If you know anything about Thai language etymologies, I would love to be set straight on this issue, so please email me with any insights.

Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep is at the top of a large mountain near Chiang Mai, and is one of the more spectacular temples in Thailand. This video gives us a pretty good look at the temple grounds, beginning with the steps you take to get up the mountain. 300-some steps. Don’t fret, though – there’s a cable car that you can take for about 25 cents that gets you there faster and with less sweat.

Thai tattooing is what first got me interested in tattoos. While finishing my university training, I was reading a book called Monks and Magic by B.J. Terwiel. He wrote of the magical qualities of traditional Thai tattoos. This got me interested in the meanings of tattoos people get back home, hence my tattoo project. If you want a souvenir tattoo, Thailand is the place to do it.

In the video, you can see the artist’s hands working fast to puncture the skin. It is not done with a machine, but by the same methods used for probably a couple thousand years.

The tattoos have different designs, depending on what part of the body, what type of powers the wearer wants and the abilities of the artist. They provide strength, good luck and even protection and virility. Check out the video to get a sense of how this is done. You can’t get ink like this back home, that’s for sure!

This is a view from the top of the Golden Mount in Bangkok. From here you can see the general landscape and tell the Bangkok is a very built-up place, the skyline dominated by low-rise buildings and palm trees. A few skyscrapers dot the view but for the most part buildings extend perhaps five or six stories as a maximum.

You can also tell that Bangkok extends quite far out, sprawled about as far as you can see. Click here to get an idea of Bangkok’s sprawl.

These are pictures from my last trip to Thailand. I went there with a friend who is a Buddhist monk and got to see the country from an angle most tourists do not experience. It was a heck of a trip! I am writing a book about it. You can read more about the trip here.

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